Lots of Dots

A couple of weeks ago Leo issued a "Paint Effects" challenge to us on the Daring Cardmakers.  I spent most of a day playing with paints and inks, trying to come up with something I liked and could use for my card.  In the end I shared one with a background made from acrylic paint mixed with Texture Paste and squidged into a die-cut stencil.  I made a few background this way and most are still in the "to be dealt with" pile
The other paint effects rechnique I tried out was one I found on Pinterest - it was in a "good to do with little kids" category, so I reckoned it might be something that even I could have a go at!

 I had a couple of goes with this technique and have to say I had a lovely time just painting with dots!  All you do is use a cotton bud dipped in paint or ink and gently "print" the dots all over the card, or maybe add the dots in a simple pattern - for a tree, or a heart etc
I made a paint palette from an empty hay-fever  pills strip (neat, eh?) for all the ink and paint colours I used here - it meant I didn't waste loads of paint and ink when you need so little to cover a big space.
I cut an aperture in the dotty card and added a frame, then placed it over a piece of card with the quotation printed on it 
The "crayons" are made from rolled coloured card and  the bunting hand-cut from the same colours

I've got something else made with the same technique in that "to be dealt with" pile, so hopefully I'll get that ready to share sometime soon

Thanks for popping by, hope you'll have a go at this technique - I'd love to know if you do and see what you make

Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny

I'm sharing another of the projects I've made with Funky Hand's lovely Season-themed wedding collections.  They may have "wedding" in the title, but don't let that put you off as these paper sets are wonderfully useful for sooooo many occasions.

Today it's a tiny little triangular box made with the "Autumn Wedding" collection 

Materials and Tools

All papers: Funky Hand Autumn Wedding collection 
printed onto Bazzill white card.

Ribbon

MFT Die'Namics Nested Hearts die set
Border created with Craft Robo

I found the tutorial for this box on Splitcoast Stampers - I don't have the direct link, but if you search for Triangular Box, I think you'll find it.  I used an 8" square rather than the 6* they used (if I remember rightly) and it still turned out tiny - I think you'd maybe get one nice chocolate inside this one!

That's it for this time, thanks for popping by :)

Creature Comforts

Nat is dog-sitting at the moment, and inspired by that, her challenge for the Daring Cardmakers this week is to add something pet-related to our cards

Its no secret that cats are not my favourite creature and I really don't "get" why people like them.  However, this was too good an opportunity to miss for giving a sneak peek of some new Digital Image downloads coming soon to the Funky Hand website.

This is Kendrick Cat - I'm told he's a fat, lazy and rather disgruntled animal - you'd never have thought that from the pictures, would you......, 
My card uses two of the first images to feature him.
I've resized and pasted the images on to a new document to make a border design for my card. With the digital work done, all I had to do was print the panel to the correct size for my card and mat it onto some bland and white cardstock . 
I printed the sentiment (borrowed from Rhe Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy) directly onto a DL card, added some ribbon and a little bell, the Kendrick panel and it was all done.

Materials and Tools

2x Kendrick images (coming soon) from Funky Hand

Black and white card for matting

Spotty satin ribbon, small silver bell

PC generated sentiment

There are some fun cards to see over on Daring Cardmakers BLOG  and we're hoping you'll join in and make a card featuring something pet related.

So that's it for this time, not much waffle for once, eh?
Thanks for looking in, please come back soon 

Fun(ky) in the Sun

I thought I'd share a postcard I made for a swap today,  The idea is that all postcards are sent "naked" - as in, no envelopes - a bit "shock horror" for anyone who loves adding dimensional stuff, or bits that are only partially adhered and meant to stick up and out from the card -  like I do with flowers etc., but it all adds to the challenge, eh? 

Our theme this time was "Summer" and tbh there was no real doubt as to what I'd be putting on my card hehe

It had to be Beach Huts!  

I knew exactly which papers I'd be using too!

 

The two Funky Hand downloads Rainbow Stripes and Rainbow Polka Dots are absolutely the ticket for a bright, Summery, Sunshiney scene like this.  Making the beach huts was a great way to show off how they can be "tweaked" to change the printing size and get bigger (or smaller) versions of the spots and stripes - this is my favourite "thing" about Funky Hand downloads!  My second favourite is being able to print them on different mediums (or should that be media?) 

Materials and Tools

Papers: Funky Hand  Rainbow Stripes and Rainbow Polka Dots collections
printed onto Bazzill white card.

Background created with various Paints and Inks, Ice Stickles, White gel pen, Glossy Accents
Plain card in matching colours for matting the Beach Huts

Beach Huts and "Just Beachy" sentiment cut with Craft Robo
Circle Punches for Parasol and beach ball, Surf board, and other bits are hand cut

That's it for this time, Don't forget to visit the Funky Hand website and blog for lots more ideas and inspiration and great value stash of course!
thanks for popping by :)

Learnng to Love my Scraps!

It's my turn to do the Funky Hand Weekend Inspiration slot this week, and here's what I'm sharing over there

I know I keep banging on about how fab it is to be able to crop and resize Funky Hand papers, but it's true - it may seem daunting at first but it's worth getting to grips with your graphics package and your printer settings because you will soon be customising your Funky stash and really making the most of it all.
As I've been using Bazzill card to do a lot of my printing on recently I'm thinking much more carefully about what I print, and trying to get the best from each sheet.  I'm much less likely to throw the unused bits away once the pile gets a bit high, and much more likely to see what I can make using those offcuts.

So today I'm sharing one of my "Scrappy Cards" - it's actually a lot of fun working out how to make the smallest pieces of paper turn into something pretty - and often I find I like these creations the best.  I really like this card and I hope you do too.

Pop over to the Funky BLOG for more info about how I made this card using scraps of the Funky Hand Winter Wedding collection left over after making the heart shaped box I showed HERE, plus a few bits from my stash.  

Thanks for visiting, please leave a message....and can I be greedy and ask you to leave one over on the Funky Blog too ;)

Have a great weekend

Paint Effect Playtime

Another Fan-tastic Friday (Fan, because it's my constant companion atm, hehe), another Daring Cardmakers Day:

This week it's Leo here and I'd like you to have a go creating:

Paint Effects

I've recently been looking through all the new product catalogues and sneak peeks and seen lots of watercolour and other paint effect looks out there so I'd like you to take inspiration from that but rather than use ready made products I want to see you having a go at using an actual paint effect or painting technique on your card if you can. Use any kind of paint or ink you want or even brush markers, just to get the look of paint.

First I had a look around for some ideas, then got out my Fresco Finish paints (all 5 of them - must buy more...they are lush) and spent a fun afternoon having a bash at some of the ideas I saw. 
The first few ideas were total disasters - mainly because I didn't have the right stuff to do them and had to improvise.  Sometimes improvising gets great reults, other times it's just a bin-filling exercise - as it was on Wednesday.

So, next I went back to using some die cuts as stencils, this is something I've done a bit of lately, and yes, boring to do the same again, but my confidence was waning!  To make it a bit different though, I dug out the texture paste (like the Fresco paints, I bought this on the suggestion of Arch-Enabler Slightly Wonky Crafts Kaz.) - it was actually bought for a project I'm yet to make a proper start at.
Anyways, I mixed a bit of paint in with the paste and squidged in with my finger into the gaps of the "stencils".  This was lovely, gooey, messy fun and whiled away a happy hour - and the results made me feel a lot better.  I've used one of the bumpy, stencilled pieces to make the background for my card.  I painted the card in a lighter shade before using the paste-paint mix

Here's a close up which I hope shows just how bumpy the stencilled sections are - click for a bigger image-loser look

  Materials and Tools

Paints: Fresco Finish (PaperArtsy) Beach Hut, Mermaid

Heavy Carvable  Texture Paste (Galeria)

Smooth White card, Purple card x 2 (Bazzill)

Purple gems and pearls (stash), Purple ribbon with multi-coloured dots (stash)

Butterfly die used for stencil and to cut the 3 layered butterfly (Memory Box)

I now have a little batch of textured backgrounds so hopefully I'll actually use some in the next few weeks.  I also tried another technique which I loved - plus, it was dead easy!  I'll save that for another post though ;)

If you head over to the Daring Cardmakers BLOG you will find lots of fab ways to use your paints and inks  - you'll need to click on the links for the DT members' blogs to get the lowdown on how they were all created.  I know I'm going to be doing that because it's always good to learn new techniques, tips and tricks

Thanks for visiting today

Top Hats

Last week I shared a little heart shaped box made using the mauve and purple tones for Funky Hand's lovely "Winter Wedding" collection.  This time I've got a card which uses the gorgeous deep blues from the same paper set.

I've kept this one fairly crisp and simple to show off the lovely pinstripe and polka dot papers.

Materials and Tools

All papers: Funky Hand Winter Wedding collection 
printed onto Bazzill white card.

Ribbon, Pewter charm, clear stones on the ribbon, tag and on the right side of the card. Computer generated sentiment

Craft Robo to cut the Top Hats

That's it for this time, thanks for popping by :)

Challenges:
Little Claires  Weddings and Anniversaries
CAS-ual Fridays Polka Dots

Ombre

It's Daring Cardmakers Day and this week Sharon is setting our challenge:

"Ombre"
 "I'd like to see the Ombre effect used on your card somewhere (an effect where the colour gradient goes from light to dark, like on a paint colour chart).

 This can be blended colour, or in blocks. 

 It seems this effect is really popular at the moment - not just

 in the craft world but in hair colouring too."

As soon as I saw Sharon's challenge, I knew what I'd be using as the "Spring Wedding" collection from Funky Hand has a few ombre papers in the various colours of the set.  I chose the stunning yellow to orange to green colourway to base my card around

I absolutely love these sunshiney colours and the lovely ombre polka dots.  The green and orange  leafy designs set the ombre paper off perfectly.  My current favourite flower die and border punch also make an appearance in this one.

Materials and Tools

All papers: "Spring Wedding" download from Funky Hand, 

printed onto white Bazzill

Yellowy orange organza ribbon, "upside down" Card Candy, Tiny pearls, Decal sticker sentiment 

EK Success border die

Memory Box Fabulous Phlox die set

For the Carrd Candy flower centres I used a couple of different greens.  I used the  paler one with the inside facing upward, the darker one I turned inside out - if that makes sense!.  All 3 were then rolled with an embossing tool to "ruffle" them a bit

That's it, nice and simple.  There are some fabulous Ombre effects to see on ur blog - lots of clever ideas for creating the effect with papers, inks, paints etc so please take a look and see what our wonderful team of Daring Cardmakers have made this week.

Thanks for visiting

Hearts, Flowers and Swirls

I really need to do a bit of catching up on blogging some of my recent Funky Hand makes, so  I thought I'd share this little box today.

I made this box from scratch, using a DieNamics Nesting Hearts die set and some Funky Hand designs printed directly onto card to make the whole process easier. Printing onto the card means you don't have to make the box and then faff about covering it with pretty paper, and you can print on both sides so the inside and outside of the box will look good.
This lovely Winter Wedding collection is such a pretty and useful set of designs with a gorgeous purple, mauve and blue colour palette.  I kept to the purple shades for this box

Materials and Tools

All papers: Funky Hand Winter Wedding collection printed onto smooth white card.

Ribbon, pearls inked and glittered to match the papers, Stickles

Hand made rose created from more of the FH printed card

MFT DieNamics nesting hearts die set

Spellbinders Swirl die

Here's a closer look at the top of the boxto show the rose, swirl and offset heart embellishment

This picture gives you an idea of the size of the box - well for fellow crafters it does!  For anyone else, these little ink pads are about 5cms tall.

It was the first time I've made this type of box and I learned that it would be a good idea to use more layers of the small inner base and lid size of hearts to give more stability to the finished box.
It was fun to make and even more fun to prettify.  I hope you like it,

Find out all you need to know about Funky Hand (and there's lots to discover, including FREEBIES!!!) by clicking HERE
 
Thanks for visiting, please leave a comment.....

July Colour Combo

Lythan has chosen the colour palette for our July Colour Challenge on the Daring Cardmakers this week.  When I first saw the colour palette I was a bit unsure, but after looking at it for a while it began to remind me of that mix of deep, intense colours and sun-bleached shades that you often get at the seaside.  So that's what I went with

In real life the aqua colour is much deeper and greener, but somehow it's lost some intensity on the photo.
The aqua and the deep blue colours were created using quite a few inks  from my little stash of Distress Inks, Versamagic Chalk Inks and Cat's Eye chalk ink pads.  I also used the fab Ink spray from Kesi'Art that came in my recent Quirky Kit.  The "waves" are squiggles of Crystal Ice Stickles.  There's a bit of white Posca paint pen in there too.  Once the Stickles were dry, I used a paint brush to wipe more of the Posca White pen over the glitter glue.

I've also used a bit of ink around the edge of the card blank, and to add a bit more "distress" to the Distressed StripesCuttlebug embossing folder I used for the background.

Materials and Tools

Aqua and Deep blue backgrounds; inks (as mentioned above) on smooth white card

Pale Grey, Orange, Yellow and Green card,; all Bazzill

Yachts are hand cut from scraps of card

Crystal Ice Stickles, Posca White pen, Sateen Ric-rac braid

Spellbinders Dies; Lace Doily Motifs (outer section of frame), Labels 26

Memory Box Dies; Fabulous Phlox, Cherry Blossom

When we were in Cornwall last year we visited the beautiful Minnack Theatre.  Lythan's colour choice really reminded me of the lovely gardens clinging to the various levels of the theatre.  It's got to be one of my favourite places and this has got to be a good excuse to pop a couple of photos on here!

As ever, our design team have made some fantastic cards to try and inspire you to join us this week.  You can see them all on the Daring Cardmakers BLOG

Thanks for looking, I hope you have a fabulous weekend

Getting In a Swirl

Today sees July's new LO published on The Sketch File Blog.
We have some lovely ideas for making great use of the sketch over on the blog and more to come each week. 

Recently I've taken to printing my Funky Hand papers onto white Bazzill - I absolutely love the marriage of the gorgeous designs on the textured card.   Obviously printing on stuff like that is a little more expensive than just printing on regular card or paper - but I think it's worth it.  A couple of other good things are that it makes me plan more what I'm going to make, then print on both sides even of quite small pieces of the card (with a cunning bit of cropping and resizing)  and finally it makes me think more about really getting the best out of that print run and using as much of the printed card as I can manage.
For instance, this card is made using scraps and off-cuts left over from the other things I made with the Summer Wedding collection

I've shrunken the July sketch - it didn't start out that way, it was going to fill the whole card when I started out, but things never seem to turn out as originally planned haha

 Materials and Tools

Cream smooth 14x14cm card blank, left edge trimmed off

All papers: Summer Wedding download collection from Funky Hand, rinted on to...

White Bazzill

Peachy pink organza ribbon, Pale pink pearls

Sketch; July In a Swirl LO from The Sketch File

Dies: MFT Oval Doily, 

Memory Box Fabulous Phlox, Elegant Swirl 9some pieces trimmed off)

EK Success Border Punch

Circle Punch to shape the spotty paper strip

http://kathyswafflesketchfile.blogspot.com/

There's something particularly satisfying about making something from scraps - or maybe it's just me that loves turning a little pile of paper and card, with the largest being no more than 12x7 cms, into something pretty and useable.
The problem is, there are still scraps left - albeit much smaller scraps....how low can you go I wonder?

Well, my parcel from Charmed Cards and Craft arrived while I was in the middle of writing this, and like a good girl I put it on the chair and didn't open it until this post was finished.  It's now screaming "Open Me" though, so I'll sign off and do as I'm told.